My husband's father did his undergraduate work at Grinnell College, in Iowa, in the late 1940s. Because man, 40s, few laundromats, etc., he used to ship his laundry home to his mother in Chicago on the train.

Ill throw another of my 2 cents into this: Who does 3 loads of wash at once? Even if I had enough clothes for that much laundry, if I'm being a lazy student, Ill still only do 1 load at a time, as needed.

And of course, it costs me 6 dollars to do a load of wash at my apartment, at home, free (assuming detergent would be needed either way, and someone else is covering utility costs).

...then you tend to save up your clothing and do a "laundry day" all at once, especially if it means traveling any distance to get to the facilities.

When I lived in a private dorm (in the 70s), we had laundry facilities in the basement (next to the pool). So my roommate and I would both do smaller loads as we could. But in graduate school, living in an apartment off campus, my roommate and I would save up (and do laundry in our bathing suits, sometimes) for massive 3- and 4-washer loads (which included towels, sheets, etc.).

I'm 37, and I'm doing three loads (whites, brights, lights) in my building's laundry room right now. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the day we have our own washer/dryer (pending renos) but it's really great to do a week's worth of laundry in about an hour and a half.

But, even in college, I hit a point when it was easier to get the laundry done before I went home to visit, rather than schlepping that giant pile with me.

This was one of the great attractions of UDel for kids from NJ such as myself--far enough away from your parents that they were out of your hair, but close enough that travel home didn't present insurmountable obstacles, particularly in the era (early 80s) before deregulation resulted in cheap airfares. Although I never brought home my dirty laundry.